As if getting a good night's sleep wasn't important enough, a new study shows that a restful night clears the brain of harmful byproducts that could accumulate or even be linked to dementia, the Los Angeles Times reports.
During sleep, the brain refreshes itself by removing mental metabolites such as beta-amyloid and tau that build up in a day's cognition. These byproducts of everyday mental activity can gum up the works quickly if the brain isn't cleared during sleep. The hum of electrical signals across synapses slows, and neurons can give up and die in the foul environment of unmanaged neural trash, according to the LA Times.
Accumulations of tau and beta-amyloid in the brain are hallmarks of certain dementias like the dreaded Alzheimer's Disease.
In the cleaning-out process, the brain's metabolic waste concentrates in interstitial fluid present in all corners of the brain. A second slurry--cerebrospinal fluid--circulates throughout the brain, and where the two fluids flow together, the metabolic byproducts are carried away by the cerebrospinal fluid, the outlet reports.
Scientists from University of Rochester Medical Center and New York University found that the brains of mice showed more activity and volume at the "transfer stations," where interstitial and cerebrospinal fluid meet, than did mice who were awake and active.
The study showed that by the end of a sleep period, around early evening, mouse brains had their lowest concentration of neural "trash" of the day. By the time they were ready to sleep again, those concentrations had reached their peak.
The neural byproducts began to clear whether the mice fell asleep naturally or with a sedative. The study's authors suggested that neural trash removal must be one of sleep's major benefits, surmising that the buildup of brain refuse may be one of the cues that drives us to bed, while an empty trash bin may signal us to wake up and begin another day of cognition.
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